Marquez Signs 4 Year Contract With HRC

320Dave said:

All eggs in one basket is a cliche, however....if Marc gets hurt Honda eats .... and loses the WC.

This is reason enough to work on a side solution while Marc beats people on the ...... but fast Honda torpedo.

Click to expand...

The fan boy perspective is short range. To them winning races is the sole objective.
When you are a bazillion dollar industry leader like Honda, the focus has to be long term. Honda is a world wide car/truck/motorcycle/tech eminence. Innovating and improving the breed is imperative. Having three talented riders on Hondas regularly being beaten by satellite riders from Ducati and Yamaha, and Suzuki as well, has to be mortifying. Marquez is a crutch used to prop up a bike that handles poorly compared to those of the competitors. Honda needs to step up their game.

Little Walter said:

The fan boy perspective is short range. To them winning races is the sole objective.
When you are a bazillion dollar industry leader like Honda, the focus has to be long term. Honda is a world wide car/truck/motorcycle/tech eminence. Innovating and improving the breed is imperative. Having three talented riders on Hondas regularly being beaten by satellite riders from Ducati and Yamaha, and Suzuki as well, has to be mortifying. Marquez is a crutch used to prop up a bike that handles poorly compared to those of the competitors. Honda needs to step up their game.

Click to expand...

The Honda has been tailored to Marc's preferences, strengths and weaknesses. They have the engineering bench strength to pivot quickly if they need to (e.g. Marquez retirement).

"You need to know if you want an easier bike or a faster bike. I don't care if the bike is difficult as long as it's faster."

Above quoted directly from Marquez. He has said directly in no uncertain terms that the handling of the bike is deficient, but he's willing to overlook the poor handling because he has the capacity (and the salary) to ride around the handling. Not what you would call a ringing endorsement of the bike's handling. Especially when you are talking about a bike alleged to be blueprinted with Marquez in mind. Surely Honda are doing the best they can but if the bike is less stable than the Ducati under breaking and less smooth than the Suzuki, it is falling short. This is why Lorenzo only went to Honda because he had no other option. This is why Quatarraro was not in the least tempted to ride for Honda. Riders look at how badly Crutchlow has fared over the last 5 years and how injured he is and stay the hell away from the Honda.

It is quoted directly from MM apparently.
Whether he was just explaining the consequences for other riders of the bike, or saying that's the way it's gonna stay isn't that clear. It didn't appear to be a complaint.
Record point score on it is clear though. A higher score than his dominant 2014 season.
I don't expect it is going to get a heap easier for others whilst he is there.

warthog1 said:

It is quoted directly from MM apparently.
Whether he was just explaining the consequences for other riders of the bike, or saying that's the way it's gonna stay isn't that clear. It didn't appear to be a complaint.
Record point score on it is clear though. A higher score than his dominant 2014 season.
I don't expect it is going to get a heap easier for others whilst he is there.

Click to expand...

.....Again you are casting doubt on things that nobody actually implied about Marquez. You never actually debate any logical statement anyone makes. If you don't know the difference between debate and diatribe, you can look it up online, for free.
.....If it's not a complaint, why would he make such statement to the press?
If Marquez says the sky is blue and it didn't fit with your beliefs, your reply would be he didn't say the sky was yellow.
.....As to why riders with other choices don't want to be on the Honda, this has been reported by paddock insiders repeatedly over the last few years. It's not exactly breaking news.

Little Walter said:

.....Again you are casting doubt on things that nobody actually implied about Marquez. You never actually debate any logical statement anyone makes. If you don't know the difference between debate and diatribe, you can look it up online, for free.
.....If it's not a complaint, why would he make such statement to the press?
If Marquez says the sky is blue and it didn't fit with your beliefs, your reply would be he didn't say the sky was yellow.
.....As to why riders with other choices don't want to be on the Honda, this has been reported by paddock insiders repeatedly over the last few years. It's not exactly breaking news.

Click to expand...

Playing the ball?

I am simply saying the bike is working well for Marquez.
The evidence is there that it is.
Nobody has had a better season on any bike.


Why would it be a complaint with those results?

If he is complaining about the bike they are delivering him, why sign a further 4 year contract riding their bikes?
Doesn't make sense to me :|
As far as me being a fan of Marquez I am.
I have been watching for quite a while and he is bloody good.
I am also a fan of Jorge, Fab, Dovi, Mav.
They are all great to watch.
I am a fan of the sport ahead of any rider but I am enjoying Marquez's skill on the bike.

I don't think Honda are stupid and they are getting results.
As I said, I would have liked Jorge to have had more time, less injury and more input, but yes the 2019 Honda did not suit him.

Would any rider do better on the same bike Marquez has been on for 7 years?
It is a big call, he is capable of doing stuff I haven't seen others as capable at.

We will see if the others can bring speed and consistency this season.

RCV600RR said:

The Honda has been tailored to Marc's preferences, strengths and weaknesses. They have the engineering bench strength to pivot quickly if they need to (e.g. Marquez retirement).

Click to expand...

He won easily on a more generally rideable bike as well. The MM has made the bike difficult for others line seems more like the last thing left for his critics as he obliterates all of Rossi’s records to me.

If they could easily give the bike more straight line performance, in regard to which the current Honda has deficiencies in comparison with Ducati according to another current thread, why don’t they ?. I am sure MM wouldn’t object.

RCV600RR said:

The Honda has been tailored to Marc's preferences, strengths and weaknesses. They have the engineering bench strength to pivot quickly if they need to (e.g. Marquez retirement).

Click to expand...

Rossi is riding into the sunset and not gonna win another championship, man. He would be lucky to win another race with Fabio getting better and faster on the same bike. I do get amused at people taking a dig at MM in a subtle way though.

Aw Mang said:

Rossi is riding into the sunset and not gonna win another championship, man. He would be lucky to win another race with Fabio getting better and faster on the same bike. I do get amused at people taking a dig at MM in a subtle way though.

Click to expand...

I don't see it as a dig at Marquez. It's critical observation about Honda's inability to make a bike that comparably rider friendly, to that of it's main competitors. Marquez is not directing Honda R&D. It's more that he is an enabler who rides around problems with the bike, allowing Honda to rest on their laurels, rather than digging in and coming up with solutions.

Race fans tend to have a myopic view of what Honda is and what their goals are as a business. The conglomerate entity known as Honda, does not exist for the sole purpose of competing at racetracks. While it's true that the Japanese enjoy the prestige gained by winning championships, it has to be borne in mind that much of the impetus of racing efforts is driven by the end value of the what the companies learn from the R&D that goes into creating competitive bikes - the worth of which in the long game is derived from being able to use that technology in the mass-produced products they sell to the general public.

Remember how successful the GSXR was when Spies and Mladin were racing each other? Club riders and pro riders alike were buying Gixxers like crazy back then. But imagine if you will, if the GSXRs handled like crap and nobody could use them unless they were as talented as Spies and Mladin.

Imagine if BMW built a sport car that was only capable when ridden by Louis Hamilton. Who would buy that car? Well maybe a few pretentious middle-ages schmucks with too much money. LOL.

I see it pretty simply.
Honda competes.
They want to win.
Give Marquez what he needs to do the job and he does it.
Both parties seem happy.
They are in trouble without Marquez however.
They have been there before though.

Keshav said:

I don't see it as a dig at Marquez. It's critical observation about Honda's inability to make a bike that comparably rider friendly, to that of it's main competitors. Marquez is not directing Honda R&D. It's more that he is an enabler who rides around problems with the bike, allowing Honda to rest on their laurels, rather than digging in and coming up with solutions.

Race fans tend to have a myopic view of what Honda is and what their goals are as a business. The conglomerate entity known as Honda, does not exist for the sole purpose of competing at racetracks. While it's true that the Japanese enjoy the prestige gained by winning championships, it has to be borne in mind that much of the impetus of racing efforts is driven by the end value of the what the companies learn from the R&D that goes into creating competitive bikes - the worth of which in the long game is derived from being able to use that technology in the mass-produced products they sell to the general public.

Remember how successful the GSXR was when Spies and Mladin were racing each other? Club riders and pro riders alike were buying Gixxers like crazy back then. But imagine if you will, if the GSXRs handled like crap and nobody could use them unless they were as talented as Spies and Mladin.

Imagine if BMW built a sport car that was only capable when ridden by Louis Hamilton. Who would buy that car? Well maybe a few pretentious middle-ages schmucks with too much money. LOL.

Click to expand...

Honda also have a history of producing MotoGP bikes which are difficult to ride. The golden era 500s were mostly brutal until Kanemoto and Eddie Lawson got their hands on one, with Gardner with his balls to the wall riding style winning a title by somehow staying on the thing rather than taming the bike.

I just don't see how MM can be responsible for the current Honda being deficient in straight line performance against the current Ducati cf the other thread. Maybe it was ever thus and Ducati just can make a more powerful engine in a fuel economy formula possibly related to the desmo valve gear, and even more so with a spec ECU with which they have been developing for a number of year longer than Honda, and Gigi with Dovi/Lorenzo/the Ducati test riders/whomever and doubtless good funding himself has got around the Ducati's own previous rideability issues. As I have said I think it is likely, particularly since it is pretty much what MM has said, that the difficulty of the current Honda is related to them making the bike as fast as possible whatever the cost in rideability to enable him to compete rather than them making a difficult bike per se because such a bike suits MM. The whole object of the spec ECU among other regulations was to even the field, and the avenues for HRC throwing bulk money at the bike to be a step ahead have been deliberately diminished. The spec ECU in particular was strongly resisted by HRC, and I don't think it is a wild surmise that the previous bespoke electronics and the resources they had available to expend in regard to same was an aspect where Honda believed they could find advantage, as well as being useful for general R and D and something they could sell the parent company on to fund GP bike racing. In the end I am sure they can get back to parity or better with the ECU etc, or design a new engine for that matter, but the latter might be a big undertaking even for Honda; Ducati wouldn't even enter GP bike racing until the formula was changed to one which suited their engine DNA. The Japanese don't bluff much, and I believe the threat to leave the sport if a spec ECU was mandated was genuine, and that bulk money for a GP bike racing program is not guaranteed in these modern times when corporations follow the dictates of the stock market, particularly given Honda are likely throwing a lot of money at their rekindled F1 effort.

warthog1 said:

I see it pretty simply.
Honda competes.
They want to win.
Give Marquez what he needs to do the job and he does it.
Both parties seem happy.
They are in trouble without Marquez however.
They have been there before though.

Click to expand...

Nobody's accusing you of overthinking things.

Little Walter said:

Nobody's accusing you of overthinking things.

Click to expand...

Why thankyou [emoji3]
Pretty simple stuff really.

Aw Mang said:

Rossi is riding into the sunset and not gonna win another championship, man. He would be lucky to win another race with Fabio getting better and faster on the same bike. I do get amused at people taking a dig at MM in a subtle way though.

Click to expand...

What does Rossi have to do with this?

michaelm said:

He won easily on a more generally rideable bike as well. The MM has made the bike difficult for others line seems more like the last thing left for his critics as he obliterates all of Rossi’s records to me.

If they could easily give the bike more straight line performance, in regard to which the current Honda has deficiencies in comparison with Ducati according to another current thread, why don’t they ?. I am sure MM wouldn’t object.

Click to expand...

That the bike is difficult for others is a completely irrelevant point from Marc's perspective. Marc's sole priority is and should be to develop the best tool for himself. If others can't hack it, that's their problem.

RCV600RR said:

That the bike is difficult for others is a completely irrelevant point from Marc's perspective. Marc's sole priority is and should be to develop the best tool for himself. If others can't hack it, that's their problem.

Click to expand...

No doubt he is doing what he does because he can and it is working results wise.

I also think that he is doing it because he must to win, there are all manner of regulations in place to even the equipment, and I think at least some of them, particularly the spec ECU, have worked. I see no reason why he would develop a poorly handling bike, I think it has been necessary to sacrifice rideability to be competitive in other areas, and I think things such as a major engine re-design have become expensive even for Honda. Of course Mick Doohan is reputed to have gone with the screamer engine back in the day because only he could ride it.

RCV600RR said:

That the bike is difficult for others is a completely irrelevant point from Marc's perspective. Marc's sole priority is and should be to develop the best tool for himself. If others can't hack it, that's their problem.

Click to expand...

I don't however doubt Marquez would prefer a bike that doesn't require him to unnecessarily overextend himself to ride around it's deficiencies.

Same as Stoner would have loved a Ducati that didn't require him to burn himself out riding around it's handling flaws. Remember all the times when Stone would be a full half lap or more ahead of the field and then - whoosh.... the front end would just disappear for no discernible reason???

Look at all the number of times MM has had to save the front end of the Honda and all the times, it just went away with no warning, leaving him beat up and injured. There's a definite parallel, Stoner with his scaphoid injury and MM with his messed up shoulders.

From the narrowest perspective, it's all good if nothing than the winning of the championship matters. But as said before, Honda is not advancing technologically as an industry leader, if they used MM as a band-aid fix for their short-comings. And from a spectator's point of view, we'd be getting a better show if the other three Honda riders had bikes that handled as well as the Yamaha or Suzuki, or at least a lot closer to them. They're talented riders who could be up at the front, instead of struggling to be in the top ten. It'd make for more passing and more exciting racing.

Keshav said:

Look at all the number of times MM has had to save the front end of the Honda and all the times, it just went away with no warning, leaving him beat up and injured.

Click to expand...

He seems to only really do that in practice though.

Keshav said:

There's a definite parallel, Stoner with his scaphoid injury and MM with his messed up shoulders.

Click to expand...

I think Stoner's scaphoid was seriously injured in a 250cc crash, but maybe I'm wrong.

RCV600RR said:

He seems to only really do that in practice though.

The excessive crashing, yes. The steady diet of multiple miracle saves (that nobody can duplicate) are still on the menu at races.

I think Stoner's scaphoid was seriously injured in a 250cc crash, but maybe I'm wrong.

Click to expand...

Yes - it was initially injured in 2003. Certainly he was w Ducati when he re-injured it necessitating the surgeries. I remember that winter, everybody stressing out as to whether he would be okay to ride in the following season. That one injury is not central to my point. Just that in general, the stress of having to over-ride the bike burned him out. Ironically - the Honda was much easier to ride.

Marquez over riding the bike is what separates him from others.
The ability to force the bike in hard and over stress the front tyre is not something you'd expect to see disappear.
He has done it all the way through his open class time.

He doesn't appear too upset with how the bike has behaved and has done well regardless of how well others have been able to ride it.
The length of the contract just signed are not the actions of someone who is struggling mentally with motivation or drive.
Injury may stop him but there is not evidence of a change in approach yet. Crashing with a recently repaired shoulder is not someone unprepared to push hard as he has done all the way through.